Three national religious agencies that carry on relief work have been honored for their "extraordinary effort" in providing aid to famine victims in Ethiopia. The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion awarded its $10,000 Roger E. Joseph Prize to Catholic Relief Services;, Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Catholic Relief Services last week airlifted 100,000 tons of dry milk to Poland to meet needs for children after radioactive fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident affected Polish dairy products. The air shipments were part of a three-month relief effort there by the U.S. church agency at the request of Polish bishops. The agency earlier allocated $100,000 for purchase of milk in Europe for Polish children.

Re "No thanks, keep your farm aid," column, Aug. 24 Joel Stein was right on target when he called the practice of selling a portion of U.S. food aid to raise cash for programs that fight poverty "a complicated scheme." Catholic Relief Services has said publicly that selling food aid is inefficient and risky. But refusing these resources would put at risk hundreds of thousands of people we serve in more than 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

A bishop has resigned from the board of a Roman Catholic charity for using a racial slur. Bishop Lawrence McNamara, 68, said Thursday that he was paraphrasing what others had told him over the years and "did not express my own attitude." He used a derogatory term for African Americans when describing comments from people who complained about the recipients of aid from Catholic Relief Services.

The Rev. J. Bryan Hehir was named dean of Harvard Divinity School, becoming the first Roman Catholic to head the academic institution, Harvard University said this week. The announcement comes three months after it became public that his predecessor as dean, Ronald Thiemann, a Lutheran minister, was forced out after thousands of pornographic files were found on his university computer.